Article Climate Warming Impacts on Distributions of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) Seed Zones and Seed Mass across Russia in the 21st Century Elena I. Parfenova 1, Nina A. Kuzmina 2, Sergey R. Kuzmin 2 and Nadezhda M. Tchebakova 1,* 1 Laboratory of Forest Monitoring, Sukachev Institute of Forest FRC KSC SB RAS, 660036 Krasnoyarsk, Russia;
[email protected] 2 Laboratory of Forest Genetics and Breeding, Sukachev Institute of Forest FRC KSC SB RAS, 660036 Krasnoyarsk, Russia;
[email protected] (N.A.K.);
[email protected] (S.R.K.) * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Research highlights: We investigated bioclimatic relationships between Scots pine seed mass and seed zones/climatypes across its range in Russia using extensive published data to predict seed zones and seed mass distributions in a changing climate and to reveal ecological and genetic components in the seed mass variation using our 40-year common garden trial data. Introduction: seed productivity issues of the major Siberian conifers in Asian Russia become especially relevant nowadays in order to compensate for significant forest losses due to various disturbances during the 20th and current centuries. Our goals were to construct bioclimatic models that predict the seed mass of major Siberian conifers (Scots pine, one of the major Siberian conifers) in a warming climate during the current century. Methods: Multi-year seed mass data were derived from the literature and were collected during field work. Climate data (January and July data and annual precipitation) were Citation: Parfenova, E.I.; Kuzmina, derived from published reference books on climate and climatic websites.